Resisting or Appropriating: Two approaches in the study of aid, violent non-state actors, and governance

Aid organisation interventions in small wars include the introduction of both a humanistic agenda and the promotion of governance in areas of limited statehood. It also includes the introduction of new resources such as money, food, goods, services, and medicine. While the non-state combatants involved in these wars often object to the agendas, they highly covet the resources. Aid organisations regularly utilise this tension to persuade and push the belligerents to adopt the organisations’ goals of stability and conflict resolution. In this paper, we explore the flip side of the coin: violent non-state actors’ responses to this tension and to the aid organisations’ agendas. We argue that violent non-state actors treat aid as another means to engage in conflict. We identify two distinct approaches that correspond with this notion. In the first, non-state actors see aid as a threat. It promotes governance over them, eliminating or competing with them. As a result, the violent non-state